Providing for Consideration of H.R. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, and Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Authorizing Committee on the Judiciary to Initiate or Intervene in Judicial Proceedings to Enforce Certain Subpoenas

Floor Speech

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 431 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 431

Resolved, That at any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2740) making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. An amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 116-17, modified by the amendment printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as the original bill for the purpose of further amendment under the five-minute rule and shall be considered as read. Points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, for failure to comply with clause 2 of rule XXI are waived.

Sec. 2. (a) No further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, amendments en bloc described in section 3 of this resolution, and pro forma amendments described in section 4 of this resolution.

(b) Each further amendment printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, may be withdrawn by the proponent at any time before action thereon, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 4 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.

(c) All points of order against further amendments printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules or against amendments en bloc described in section 3 of this resolution are waived.

Sec. 3. It shall be in order at any time for the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or her designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of further amendments printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 4 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.

Sec. 4. During consideration of the bill for amendment, the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees may offer up to 15 pro forma amendments each at any point for the purpose of debate.

Sec. 5. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment pursuant to this resolution, the Committee of the Whole shall rise without motion. No further consideration of the bill shall be in order except pursuant to a subsequent order of the House.

Sec. 6. (a) During consideration of H.R. 2740, it shall not be in order to consider an amendment proposing both a decrease in an appropriation designated pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A)(ii) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 and an increase in an appropriation not so designated, or vice versa.

(b) This section shall not apply to an amendment between the Houses.

Sec. 7. Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order without intervention of any point of order to consider in the House the resolution (H. Res. 430) authorizing the Committee on the Judiciary to initiate or intervene in judicial proceedings to enforce certain subpoenas and for other purposes. The amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Rules now printed in the resolution shall be considered as adopted. The resolution, as amended, shall be considered as read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the resolution, as amended, to adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of the question except one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules.

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, H.R. 431, providing for consideration of H.R. 2740, making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes, and H. Res. 430, authorizing the Committee on the Judiciary to initiate or intervene in judicial proceedings to enforce certain subpoenas and, also, for other purposes.

The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 2740 under a structured rule, self-executes Chairwoman Lowey's manager's amendment, and makes in order 106 different amendments.

The rule provides 1 hour of general debate, equally and divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, and provides that they may offer up to 15 pro forma amendments, each for the purposes of debate.

The chair of the Appropriations Committee may also offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments made in order by the rule and not earlier disposed of.

Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of H. Res. 430 under a closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally and divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, this rule pairs two bills which demonstrate the commitment of the House majority both to making strong progress for the American people in the areas of health, labor, and education, at the same time that we defend the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law against the obstructionism and the lawlessness of the executive branch of government.

Let's start with H.R. 2740, which is designed to make government work for our people. It provides $189.9 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

It increases investment in the National Institutes of Health, our country's preeminent medical research agency, a national treasure, which is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in my district, to support research for Alzheimer's disease, HIV/Aids, breast cancer, colon cancer, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, childhood cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, mental health, suicide prevention, and the Cancer Moonshot initiative.

The people of NIH and their network of allied entities and agencies and supported universities and research labs across the country are making profound progress in the struggle to uplift the health of the people against all of the killer diseases of our time.

And for the first time in more than 20 years, this bill contains funding to support gun violence and firearm injury prevention research, and we are proud of that.

This legislation increases funding for Department of Education programs to help America's children succeed, providing critical resources for elementary and secondary schools, special ed programs, and Federal student aid. Importantly, the bill increases the maximum Pell grant to help America's college and graduate students keep pace with inflation and the high cost of living.

H.R. 2740 also provides $56.4 billion in funding for the State Department, USAID, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. We are making major strategic investments in diplomacy, global health, and international basic education, the crucial ingredients for maintaining peace and security around the world.

This legislation provides essential humanitarian assistance and critical funding to improve maternal and child health, to fight diseases like malaria, and to support women's reproductive health and literacy across the globe. We know that the key to improving social and economic development around the world is the education of women and the investment in family planning programs and literacy about procreation.

This legislation renews our Nation's commitment to addressing the climate crisis by investing in directives on adaption and renewable energy. It also prohibits the use of any government funds to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

Now, on the other legislation, which deals with contempt, Mr. Speaker, we know from Special Counsel Mueller's report that there was a sweeping and systematic assault on America's elections in 2016. There was a conscious effort and plan by Vladimir Putin and the GRU to undermine and destabilize the American elections by interfering and hacking into the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Hillary Clinton's offices to inject poisonous ideological propaganda into the body politic of America through Facebook, through Twitter, through YouTube and other social media entities and then to directly hack into the State boards of election.

The Department of Justice launched a special counsel inquiry. It was a Republican Attorney General who named a Republican special counsel, Mr. Mueller, to do it.

The President of the United States, according to Special Counsel Mueller's report, engaged in at least 10 different episodes of efforts to interfere with that investigation, to obstruct justice. We received that report a couple of months ago from the special counsel.

In the aftermath of it, President Trump said, ``We are fighting all subpoenas,'' and declared that there would be no cooperation from the executive branch with legislative branch subpoenas, with our demands for documents, with our demands for witnesses, with our demands for testimony from the executive branch. He said: ``I don't want people testifying,'' and, ``There is no reason to go any further.'' And since then, they have drawn a curtain down over the executive branch of government and defied the lawful orders of the Congress of the United States.

The Trump administration is stonewalling, from pillar to post, congressional investigations, defying validly issued congressional subpoenas. So, for example, Attorney General Barr is refusing to produce the full unredacted Mueller report and the related underlying evidence to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Every other independent special counsel had simply turned their report over to Congress and Congress did the redactions, but Attorney General Barr engaged in a series of games with the Congress of the United States and confused the American public, as Special Counsel Mueller complained in a letter that he sent to the Attorney General.

He is also defying a House Intelligence Committee subpoena directing him to turn over documents and materials related to Special Counsel Mueller's investigation, including all counterintelligence and foreign intelligence materials produced during the investigation.

Don McGahn, the former White House counsel, has defied a subpoena issued by the House Committee on the Judiciary without any substantial legal basis at all.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is defying a subpoena from the House Ways and Means Committee directing him to produce the President's tax returns under a statute that makes it crystal clear that Congress has a right to obtain the tax returns of the President or any other citizen of the United States.

Commerce Secretary Ross and Attorney General William Barr are refusing to comply with duly authorized bipartisan subpoenas from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating the administration's shadowy and illicit efforts to add an illegitimate citizenship question to the 2020 Census completely outside of the Administrative Procedures Act process. Several District Courts have struck that down. But, in any event, the administration is refusing to turn over evidence, relevant evidence, to Congress about this effort to impose the citizenship question on the census.

The administration is refusing to turn over documents, witnesses, and testimony relating to the corruption of the security clearance process in the White House personnel office.

There were 25 different individuals who were denied a security clearance by the professional staff in the White House personnel office, who were then overruled by President Trump or political appointees. We are trying to get information as to what was the basis for the original denial. It was, likely, conflict with foreign governments or financial conflicts of interest. It might also have been drug or alcohol problems. But we want to get the details of each one, and then we want to know if there is any written documentation of why the President and his subordinates overturned those.

In all of these cases, Mr. Speaker, the executive branch of government has followed President Trump's orders to say, simply: We are not going to turn anything over to Congress.

Now, understand, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that it is an essential and integral aspect of legislative power to engage in investigation and factfinding. That is how the people's Representatives are able to legislate: We are able to get information. But if you shut down our ability to get information, we cannot engage in lawmaking. For that reason, we have begun to win in all of these Federal District Court cases where we are going out to try to get this information.

But, Mr. Speaker, we cannot tie up the floor of the House of Representatives every time the executive branch decides to follow the order of the President and simply deny us the information that we seek.

My friends across the aisle know from the Fast and Furious investigation, the Hillary Clinton email investigation, the Benghazi investigation it is Congress' right to investigate and to obtain the documents that it wants. They obtained millions of documents in those investigations. We had a right to get them then, and we have a right to get all of these documents now.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation will give the power, first of all, to the Committee on the Judiciary to follow through on the subpoenas that it has issued. It will also empower and authorize each chair of the House of Representatives to enforce their lawful subpoenas that are being dishonored and violated by the executive branch of government.

So we are very proud to bring forward these two pieces of legislation, one which makes good on our commitment to the American people to continue to make progress in the fields of education, healthcare, labor, and scientific and medical research while, at the same time, we defend the Constitution, the rule of law, the prerogatives and powers of Congress against the lawlessness and the obstructionism of this administration.

We are the preeminent and primary branch of government. The very first sentence of the Constitution, Mr. Speaker: ``We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.''

The second sentence that follows is all legislative power is vested in the Congress of the United States.

The sovereign power of the people comes right through the preamble into Article I, establishing us as the representatives of the people. Then you get dozens of paragraphs setting forth all the powers of Congress: to declare war, to raise revenues, to write budgets, to impeach the President or other executive branch officials who commit high crimes and misdemeanors and to remove them in the Senate, to set up a post office, to govern the seat of government, and to establish a capital city. Those are the prerogatives and powers of Congress.

Then you get to Article II, and Article II fixes the powers of the President. What are the President's core responsibilities? To take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That is the President's job: to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.

It is even in Article II that the President can be impeached, in Section 4.

Just to make it clear, the President works for the Congress; the Congress doesn't work for the President. And we, the Congress, work for the people.

That is what it means to have a representative democracy. We work for the people.

Now, we have a President who is in an unprecedented, wholesale, categorical defiance of the powers of Congress by denying us the information that we seek to obtain, which is our right and which is our need.

We are going to get it, and we are going to get it by empowering Congress to go to court to enforce our subpoenas.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to hear from my friend from Oklahoma about both of these bills. We were here together last night until around midnight, working on the rules for these bills.

On H.R. 2740, the appropriations package that we have together, we have authorized more than 100--I think the number is 112--bipartisan amendments. In fact, I think the first amendment is one that is from the gentleman from Oklahoma. We have made that first.

I won't be voting for it. I won't be supporting it, but he has the opportunity to make his case on the floor of the House of Representatives and to present it to colleagues.

We are proud of the fact that there are more than 100 amendments. In fact, I think we are meeting again this afternoon, and we might adopt dozens more amendments, for the consideration of the full House.

But on the question of H. Res. 430, which is to empower the Judiciary Committee and the other committees in Congress to enforce our right to obtain information that we seek, I think that this should be an overriding, bipartisan commitment within the Article I branch, within the Congress of the United States.

We simply cannot tolerate a posture from the President of the United States--and it is hard for me to think of any other Congress that would tolerate it from any other President--of noncooperation and absolute, comprehensive, and wholesale defiance of the will of Congress in trying to seek information.

My good friend from Oklahoma says that the President does not work to enforce the laws of Congress; he works for the people. Well, we all work for the people. That was my point. His job is to take care that the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed. We work directly for the people.

At least until we get a national popular vote for President, the President is not elected by the people, as we know from the 2016 election itself where the popular vote winner, who gained several million more votes than Donald Trump did, lost the election because of the workings of the electoral college.

The Presidency was set up as an indirect mechanism, and that is something that I think that we should be replacing. But I think it is not appropriate to claim a popular mandate for the President when the President emerges from the electoral college.

In any event, the President's job is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and also to be the Commander in Chief in times of actual conflict, but it is up to Congress to legislate. That is what we do. That is why it is so problematic when the President of the United States says:

I will not accept a bipartisan congressional rejection of billions of dollars in funding for my border wall; I am going to declare a national emergency and then reprogram money from other lawfully appropriated purposes.

That is a violation of the spending power of the Congress of the United States. It is just like the President rejecting a bipartisan repudiation of his involvement with the Saudi Government in the Yemeni civil war. We have not declared war with Saudi Arabia against Iran or anybody else in the Yemeni conflict, and so we don't want to be involved in it. We don't want our money going to that bloody humanitarian catastrophe, and yet the President simply rejects the majority will of both Houses of Congress. That is a decisive rejection in defiance of Congress' power to declare war.

Now what we are getting is this complete defiance of our ability to get the information that we need. The President said it very clearly. He basically said: No subpoenas, no witnesses--enough--and no do-overs.

So he is not going to allow us to investigate the compromised security clearance process and the White House is not going to allow us to investigate the completely suspect corruption and distortion of the constitutional mandate for a Census which we have got to do by virtue of the Constitution every 10 years, and he is not going to cooperate with any investigation into the matters that were covered by Special Counsel Mueller; the organized, systematic comprehensive, sweeping attack on our elections by the GRU and Russian agents or the more than 100 contacts they had with the Trump campaign or the 10 different episodes of Presidential obstruction of justice that were set forth by Special Counsel Mueller in his report.

We can't accept that. So this legislation in H.R. 430 will give us the opportunity to go to court right away to enforce our subpoenas against this unprecedented defiance of congressional power by the President of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, all of us, of course, embrace and uphold the First Amendment and the rights of religious freedom, the right to not have government establish a religion and to participate in the free exercise of religion and to worship or to not worship exactly as you please. There is nothing in any of our legislation that would interfere with anybody's right to exercise precisely their religious preference to worship exactly as they please and to belong to whatever religious faith or denomination they want.

I am not quite sure exactly what the gentleman was referring to. We know that the idea of a religious freedom to discriminate has been asserted ever since the 1960s with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 where the hotel and motel, lunch counter and department store owners said that they had a religious right to only serve the customers that they wanted and that it violated their religious faith to have interracial parties seated in restaurants or at the lunch counter. Our Supreme Court rejected that, and this Congress has rejected that.

There have been similar efforts to say we have a constitutional right not to serve gay and lesbian customers. That has been rejected, and I hope that this Congress will also reject it.

We passed the Equality Act very proudly to add protection for LGBT people to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and I hope that the Senate will go along with it.

In any event, there is nothing in any of the legislation before us and none has been cited which violates any of the free exercise rights of the people. So with that, unless I hear anything further, I am not moved by how anybody is affected by this appropriation negatively.

My other good friend from Oklahoma referenced the phrase checks and balances, and that does appear in the Federalist Papers. I think it is in Federalist 51. It actually refers to the relationship between the House and the Senate. That was the design of the Framers of the Constitution that the House and the Senate would check and balance each other. But the Framers were very clear that we were overthrowing monarchy. We didn't want monarchy. That is why we got rid of the king. The revolutionaries and the rebels who gave us America and who wrote the Constitution were trying to institute a new form of government representing We the People. That is why we are so proud to be able to serve in the people's House here along with our friends in the Senate.

But the President's core job is to take care that our laws are faithfully executed. We have no kings here; we have no monarchs here. That is why we have the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution which says that none of us who serves in Washington can accept any present-- any emoluments, which just means a payment--any office or title from a prince, a king, or a foreign government without the consent of Congress.

That is a cardinal principle in the Constitution. It is our original anti-corruption principle because the Framers did not want the President or Members of Congress selling out the country. They wanted complete, undivided loyalty by those of us who come to Washington, who aspire and obtain the public office to have complete, undivided loyalty to the American people and not to lobbyists for foreign governments, agents, and saboteurs.

So that is another real problem that this President seems not to recognize. That provision obligates him whenever he receives any money from a foreign government through his hotel or his office towers or any of his going businesses that he has kept going in the course of his tenure, whenever he receives any of that money, he has got to come to Congress to ask for our permission and for our consent.

Mr. Speaker, we can show you records from lots of prior Presidents who came to Congress to ask for a consent because they received a Persian rug, or a shawl, or cufflinks. Yet--at least according to court reports and media reports--this President has been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars from foreign governments. In fact, the President I think made a voluntary deposit he said of the profits from foreign government receipts of $350,000 to the U.S. Treasury without any accounting to us, without any receipts, and without asking for our consent.

So even if the Constitution says that you can't accept the profits from foreign payments, which it doesn't, it says you can't accept foreign payments. That would be insufficient because Congress has got to offer its consent.

Look, we need to lay down the law about all of these matters. When we ask for a document, we want the document. When we issue a subpoena from the United States Congress, you comply with the subpoena. When we ask for a witness, the witness arrives. That is what H.R. 430 is all about. We have got to empower Congress to enforce its will.

I still have not heard a single instance offered from anybody whose religious freedoms under the Constitution of the United States are threatened by any of the legislation here.

I do know that the ultimate logic of the argument that we just heard here is to support legislation like what was just passed in the State of Alabama. In Alabama today--please read an article in the Washington Post this morning, Mr. Speaker--in Alabama today if this legislation is signed into law, a 15-year-old girl who is raped by her step-uncle not only would not be able to obtain an abortion, because there is no exception for rape or incest in the ban that the legislature just passed, but she would be compelled to have him involved in the raising of the child because Alabama protects the paternity rights of the rapist. So it is one of only two States in the country where a rapist continues to have parenthood rights in the child.

So get this straight. If what we are hearing is actually enacted into law--and I understand my colleagues to be encouraging legislation like this around the country, like the law in Alabama--we will have a situation where girls who are 15 or 14 or 13 or 16 years old who are raped by their stepfathers or step-uncles must carry a child to term, have the baby, and in some States be forced to raise the baby with the rapist.

So I don't think that is where we are today in America under Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe v. Wade, and certainly the majority is going to stand very strong for healthcare for women and reproductive freedom for women and men to make their own decisions.

Jackson Lee).

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for his courtesy.

Mr. Speaker, there is a document that I hold in my hand that covers the epidemic apparently that is taking siege over America. It contains the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

The Declaration of Independence paraphrases we are all created equal with certain inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am honored to serve in this body and, with honor, walk through the halls and look at the historical depictions of the early years.

Just coming back from D-Day in Normandy, I am reminded of the brave men and, certainly, women who served in the United States military, supporters in World War II, but, in particular, the men who stormed the Normandy beach.

I am reminded, I am sure, of the words of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said: The world is watching, and they will join you in marching to victory.

This Constitution has the Ninth Amendment, the right to privacy. It has the right to freedom of religion and freedom of access and freedom of speech. And all that is being done here today is to acknowledge not only the poor 15-year-old, 13-year-old, and 14-year-old that my good friend from Maryland talked about, but, all over the country, denying poor women access to health services that should really be based upon their faith, their God, their family, and their medical provider.

In some of the bills in Missouri and in some of the bills that are being proposed in Georgia, Alabama, and in my own State of Texas, it is litigation that would get you healthcare. It is no respect of the individual human being, the person, who may have to go back to the antics of yesteryear, dealing with the tactics of coat hangers of which many of us are aware.

Let me also say that underlying in this rule is the opportunity for the force of the authority of the Article I Congress to enforce individuals to come before congressional committees, such as the Committee on the Judiciary, which we will debate later.

It is invested in this Constitution, because of Article I authority and the collegial response that the Founding Fathers wanted us to have, that there are no unequal branches--there is a number one branch--and one branch should not ignore and disrespect the other branch.

Therefore, if Article I branch, which we are in, asks for witnesses and then is blocked by another branch that has no greater status--read the Constitution.

In this rule, we have tried to correct the imbalance and inappropriateness that is occurring in this body and in this process, and so I ask my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation to restore the Constitution.

It is a pleasure to work with the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) on H.R. 2740 and H.R. 4340, and I do urge all of our colleagues to support this rule for this legislation.

I do hope my friend from Oklahoma will tutor some of his colleagues, like the last speaker, who referred to the ``Democrat majority.'' Democrat is the noun. Democratic is the adjective for our party, and I think that would be a basic gesture of interparty civility if they would follow that fairly easy grammatical device.

Mr. Speaker, one of the other Members from the other side, I think from Oklahoma, talked about some education matters, so I want to go to some statistics that actually mean something to the American people. I think we can refute all of the statistics that were advanced by my friend from Oklahoma, as I said.

There are more than 100 amendments that we are going to be bringing up today, and we are going to be adding more of them, and we certainly don't want to endure lectures from people who belong to the caucus that ran the most closed Congress in the history of the United States.

But here are some figures that actually mean something to the American people. Our bill provides a total of $75.9 billion in appropriations for the Education Department, which is $4.5 billion above the 2019-enacted level, and $11.9 billion beyond what the President asked for. So that means dramatic increases in everything from IDEA special education spending, to education, innovation, and research programs, to spending for teacher professional development evidence-based models and so on.

We are also increasing money for student financial assistance for Pell Grants for higher education, because it has become too difficult for our young people to make their way through college, and they are graduating, basically, with a mortgage of 100 or $150,000, but they don't have a house to go with it. So this majority is committed to alleviating the burden on America's college students.

Mr. Speaker, we are trying to make progress, under very difficult circumstances with this President, for the American people in the realm of education, healthcare, scientific and medical research. We are making that progress, and I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the previous question.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Cole is as follows: Amendment to House Resolution 431

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 8. That immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the House shall resolve into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3056) to provide supplemental appropriations relating to border security, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. Points of order against provisions in the bill for failure to comply with clause 2 of rule XXI are waived. Clause 2(e) of rule XXI shall not apply during consideration of the bill. When the committee rises and reports the bill back to the House with a recommendation that the bill do pass, the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.

Sec 9. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 3056.
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